


The Places You'll Go

by Grundy



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cousins, Gen, Ost-in-Edhil, Second Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 04:37:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12449850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grundy/pseuds/Grundy
Summary: Celebrían has an idea, but she needs some help to make it a reality. Who else would she turn to but her cousin?Written as a treat for Innumerable Stars 2017.





	The Places You'll Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bunn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/gifts).



Celebrimbor looked up as the chime over the workshop door sounded.

He hated being interrupted, but he hated being startled when he was in the middle of delicate work even more, so he had borrowed the idea he’d first seen in a shop on Balar – by Men, no less. So much for the Eldar discovering everything first!

He was surprised to see who the visitor was.

“Celebrían! What an unexpected surprise! I did not know you were back.”

His younger cousin smiled and hugged him.

“I got home last night,” she said. “Don’t feel slighted, though – I only said hello to Ammë and Ada before I went to sleep. I was exhausted, but I pushed on well after dark last night thinking of my nice warm bed!”

Celebrimbor tsk’ed reprovingly as she stepped back.

“It’s your own fault for deciding that trekking through the southern wilderness in the middle of winter was a good idea,” he pointed out. “You might have been sleeping in that bed these past few months instead of making do with hammocks when you could and the ground if that wouldn’t work.”

“True,” Celebrían replied. “But then I would not have seen for myself that Sîr Angren _does_ freeze over well south of the mountains, nearly to where it meets the Adorn. Thranduil was wrong!”

Her face lit with glee at having won the argument.

Celebrimbor shook his head. While he certainly didn’t mind Celebrían’s irritating cousin being proved incorrect, he didn’t think that was sufficient incentive to go hiking through the snow with him for several weeks in the coldest part of the year. It wouldn’t be for him, anyway.

“If you deem that triumph worth the discomfort,” he shrugged. “But what brings you here now, rather than waiting until dinner? It can’t be just crowing about having bested Thranduil again.”

Celebrimbor dined with Galadriel and Celeborn most nights. He did not lack for friends in Ost-in-Edhil, but he enjoyed the cozier atmosphere among family when that was a choice. As Galadriel had not needed to journey to Mithlond of late, contenting herself with writing letters to her grandnephews as necessary, it has been a choice for most of the last several decades.

Celebrían, at just shy of her third yen, was old enough that her father felt it only fair that she be allowed the freedom to explore Ennor. Her mother, wary after all the losses of the First Age, would have happily kept her only child closer to home, but could not fault Celeborn’s argument that she had enjoyed such freedom at a similar age. (If she thought there was a difference between Aman and Eriador, she hadn’t said it. At least, not that Celebrimbor had heard.)

The only stricture Celeborn placed on his daughter was that if her journeys took her into the wilder country beyond Eregion – meaning help or shelter would not be close at hand – she should have at least one companion. Generally, that meant any one of the numerous young folk close to her own age.  But Thranduil and several other somewhat older Sindar did not mind accompanying her from time to time.

Or allowing her to accompany them – for some of her journeys were not her own idea, but ones she went along with out of curiosity. Her trips beyond the Hithaeglir mostly fell into that category. Celebrimbor had his suspicions about why Thranduil went roving beyond the mountains so often, but he wasn’t about to stick his nose into Sindarin politics. And if Celebrían went along, she was surely reporting to her parents.

“Well,” Celebrían said slowly. “I was hoping you might help me with a new project…”

She glanced about, as if nervous she would be overheard, before swinging around a bag he hadn’t noticed, tumbling its contents out onto the nearest workbench.

There was a sheaf of papers, most of them closely written, several with roughly sketched maps. Travel notes, by the looks of it. Yes, she was definitely reporting to her parents, and in more detail than he’d though. But some were more purposeful…

“You are a mapmaker?” Celebrimbor asked, astonished.

It wasn’t something he would have expected from the high-spirited young elleth. She appeared no more serious than any other child of the Second Age, who took the peace and security they had known all their lives for granted despite their parents’ stories. Then again, perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised. From what he had heard, Galadriel had often been underestimated in her youth.

“I’m trying to be,” Celebrían replied nervously. “I know Ada’s people don’t really see the point, not when they say they know where the important things are without bits of paper, but it seems useful, don’t you think?”

Celebrimbor smiled.

“Very useful. The Sindar may not go for cartography, but I can assure you the Noldor and the Teleri definitely do. My uncles had map rooms in all their strongholds. And the Teleri that came for the War of Wrath spent much of the time they weren’t needed to ferry people and supplies around charting the coastline and bay.”

Unfortunately, those charts had ended up being little more than historical curiosities, given that what used to be coast was now fifty fathoms under the waves.

“Good! I am glad I’m not the only one,” Celebrían exclaimed. “Only, I need a more reliable way to measure distances and elevations than counting paces. Or trying to eyeball angles! And _this_ didn’t work at all.”

She pulled what looked to be a rough attempt at a circular section from her bag.

“I tried to make a prototype while I was travelling, but of course even if I’d had an accurate scale to mark it with, wood is hardly the ideal material. Metal would hold up much better.”

Celebrimbor nodded, pleased that his cousin had picked up so much when as far as he knew she hadn’t had any particular lessons in materials. Wood would expand or contract depending on the environment, and be subject to warping as properly worked metal would not be.

“So I started trying to plan something better,” Celebrían continued, “and came up with these.”

She handed over several more papers.

One was a careful, detailed sketch of a graduated wheel, the other refined on her circular section, giving Celebrimbor a far clearer idea what she was getting at than the unsuccessful prototype had. One sketch in particular was making clever use of lenses to improve the design.

Galadriel would be extremely happy with this development, although Celebrimbor wasn’t about to say so. He knew Celebrian often found it annoying that her mother’s people and her father’s people seemed determined to divide her up into her constituent parts. But work like this _was_ very Noldor…

The wheel was an interesting idea, Celebrimbor thought, and shouldn’t be too difficult to make. The only part even remotely challenging would be how to make reading measurements from it both easy and accurate. There was no doubt that he could make the gears…

“This one is something we should definitely explore,” he told Celebrían, handing back the sheet with the wheel. “It’s meant to walk off distances?”

She nodded.

“It will probably only be practical for relatively flat ground,” she explained. “But I thought it would be simple enough to try out on the road to Mithlond.”

“How soon are you going?” Celebrimbor asked, trying to plan a schedule. He had a few things he wanted to finish up before focusing on this, but they were small, requiring only a day or two to wrap up. “Not right away, I hope?”

Celebrían rolled her eyes.

“Not until spring, thank you,” she replied tartly. “I’m enjoying being warm and giving Ada a chance to spoil me far too much to leave right away. Anyway, are there any maps just of the area from here to the Sea?”

Celebrimbor shrugged.

“If there are, they’re probably with Gil-galad.  If you plan to travel that way in the spring, you should tell him you’re embarking on map-making. He’ll be interested, I’m sure.  Gildor will be more than happy to go along with you on any travelling you do for this venture. And Elrond will probably want copies of whatever you produce, he loves anything written.”

 “I don’t know Elrond. I’ll stick with Gil-galad and Gildor,” Celebrían said, wrinkling her nose.

“You don’t know Elrond?” Celebrimbor asked in some astonishment. “I’ll grant you he has to be pried out of the library with a crowbar unless duty or Gil-galad demand his presence elsewhere, but I would have thought…”

Celebrían shook her head.

“Maybe I saw him once or twice when I was small,” she said doubtfully. “But there were so many people in Mithlond fussing over me at the time that it’s hard to recall which one he was.”

“I can’t understand-” Celebrimbor stopped abruptly. “Of course, the last time you were in Mithlond was just after Elros laid down his life.”

Celebrían looked at him blankly.

“What has that to do with anything?” she asked.

“To say Elrond took it very hard is an understatement. He was absolutely shattered, in no fit state to see anyone. Erestor had taken the admittedly drastic step of appointing himself Elrond’s caretaker, seeing as there were no Fëanorions handy to look after him. Fussed over him so much you’d have thought he was Elrond’s mother. Not that El noticed, of course.”

Celebrían giggled at the thought of prim Erestor mothering anyone, let alone another grown ellon.

“You’re laughing, but it was not at all funny at the time. Everyone thought he was fading. Your parents actually agreed with Gil-galad and Cirdan that if he didn’t start reacting to the rest of the world, he’d have to be sent West. And that was no small concession from any of them.”

 “So what happened?” she asked curiously. “He’s obviously still here on the Hither Shores.”

Celebrimbor laughed.

“You’d have to ask your Uncle Oropher. He got wind of the plot, marched into Mithlond, and more or less abducted Elrond. They vanished somewhere up north.  Gildor and your father went after them, of course, but whatever Oropher did happened before they caught up. By the time they did, Elrond was talking and eating again. Well, _talking_ might be an exaggeration. Speaking when spoken to, at least.”

“I doubt Uncle Oropher will tell me anything about it,” Celebrian sniffed. “If I was too young to know about it at the time, I’m probably still too young. Or it would be an invasion of Lord Elrond’s privacy or something.”

Celebrimbor shook his head.

“Never know if you don’t try, will you? But you should have Gildor introduce you to Elrond next time you’re in Mithlond. He’s better now.”

Celebrimbor paused, struck by a thought.

“Actually, you might ask him if any of the mapmaking tools my uncle Caranthir used to have survived. If that stuff made it as far as Amon Ereb, chances are Elrond has it now.”

“There are already devices that do what I need?” Celebrían demanded, sounding torn between irritation and disappointment.”

“There _might_ be,” Celebrimbor told her. “Caranthir wasn’t a cartographer himself, but he employed several. For all I know, their tools were destroyed when Thargelion fell. But if Elrond does have them, I can’t see him saying no to you borrowing them for a bit. And either way, we can definitely make you something. Your designs are good, and I remember what my uncle’s looked like. And I’m sure we can improve on them.”

Celebrían looked skeptical, but said nothing.

“You will want a level, and a way to measure both horizontal and vertical angles,” Celebrimbor mused. “If you mean to map the wild country, it would be best to have all these functions in one device, so you won’t need to carry as much. We might make your circular section do all of it.”

“Yes!” Celebrían agreed. “And I’ll need tools to draw the map as well. And a case to keep it all in that will prevent anything being damaged while I’m traveling. Maybe one that has a flat surface I can use for working on the map? Scale, protractor, compass – have I missed anything?”

“A vernier might be handy,” Celebrimbor said thoughtfully. 

Celebrían wasn’t sure if he meant for map-drawing, or if he was still mulling over the device he had clearly seen in his mind’s eye while speaking. When Celebrimbor got an idea in his head, he tended to pursue it until he was satisfied.

Occasionally it was annoying, but this time it meant she’d have excellent tools when they finished. Not to mention, she’d get to see how they were made – Celebrimbor never minded her watching though he was prone to get snappish with any other non-apprentices who tried to hang about while he was working.

“So you’ll help?” she asked brightly.

Celebrimbor gave her an astonished look, as though he couldn’t believe she would ask such a silly question.

“Of course. This is very different than anything I’ve done before. It’ll be fun.”

Celebrían beamed.

 “Come on,” Celebrimbor said. “Before we _both_ lose track of time and get scolded for holding up dinner, let’s go tell your mother she can chalk one more up for the Noldor, or maybe the Teleri. Her choice.”

“Ammë doesn’t keep score!” Celebrían scoffed.

“Sure she doesn’t,” Celebrimbor muttered.


End file.
